YANGON , Myanmar -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Courts in Myanmar have sentenced a blogger , a poet and several dissidents to several years in jail for anti-regime activities , a court official told CNN Tuesday .

Young people at an Internet cafe in Myanmar .

The verdicts were announced Monday and Tuesday , the court official said .

Blogger Nay Phone Latt was sentenced to more than 20 years in jail for his illegal Internet activities , the court official said .

The blogger was a `` major source of information for the outside world '' when the military junta used force last year to suppress anti-government demonstrations , said The Irrawaddy , an online newspaper published by exiles from Myanmar , which is also known as Burma .

The government exercises strict controls over media outlets in the southeast Asian country . Dissidents often turn to the Internet to disseminate information .

In the second case , poet Saw Wai received a two-year jail sentence for a poem he wrote for Valentine 's Day that contained a veiled jab at the junta 's leading figure , Senior Gen. Than Shwe .

The first words of each line in the eight-line poem , `` February the Fourteenth '' spelled out the message : `` Senior General Than Shwe is crazy with power . ''

On Tuesday , the government handed down prison sentences to about a dozen members of a pro-democracy group known as the '88 Generation Students .

Irrawaddy said the members were each sentenced to 65 years in jail , but CNN could not independently confirm the figure .

Members of the group took part in the anti-government demonstrations that ended with the death of as many as 100 people last year after security forces clashed with thousands of protesters . The dead included 40 Buddhist monks .

Witnesses said the violent crackdown in September 2007 came as hundreds of monks defied a military ban on public assembly .

Until then , demonstrations led by the monks -- who are highly respected in the predominantly Buddhist country -- had gone largely unchallenged by the military , which has ruled the country since the 1960s .

The protests were sparked by a huge fuel price increase imposed by the military government , and quickly escalated . The action was informally dubbed the `` Saffron Revolution '' because of the maroon robes with saffron sashes that the monks wore .

@highlight

Myanmar court jails blogger , poet and dissidents for anti-regime activities